


The Devil and John Irving

by snagov



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Blasphemy, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Desire, Emotional Manipulation, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Oral Sex, Religious Guilt, Shame, Smut, the mortifying ordeal of calvinist religious trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:20:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25737940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snagov/pseuds/snagov
Summary: The Devil goes to bed with the lights on.
Relationships: Cornelius Hickey/Lt John Irving
Comments: 16
Kudos: 49





	The Devil and John Irving

The Devil, John Irving has always known, might cite Scripture for his own purpose.

One must always be careful. So John keeps to the strict edges of his life and a close eye on his own soul. Each morning and evening might find him here, kneeling against his bunk, saying his prayers into his own two hands.

“Please,” he whispers, bent against his bunk, praying to someone he’s never seen. The priests tell him that God is a personal revelation, a relationship of you and the Lord, and John faithfully repeats this. Still, sometimes, when he is very tired, he wonders if anyone is listening at all. “Please. Keep us safe, deliver us.”

He has a long list of things he prays for. Each night before sleep, he prays to keep his family safe from fire and flood, from illness and accident. He prays for the ships. For the dog. Finally, he prays for himself. _Deliver me_ , he prays. It’s the only thing he can ask for. He draws the prayer out, for to cease praying is to climb into bed and to stare at the oak wall of his cabin on HMS _Terror,_ counting down the minutes until he fails again, always and again, and slides a reluctant hand between his thighs.

“Praying again?” A voice interrupts. John blinks and tears his hand away. Branded. Found out.

“Get out.”

“Why? You practically invited me.”

“I wouldn’t invite the Devil to my bed.” _I don’t want this. This is wrong._ He burns at this thought of a bearded chin and a wry gleam in pale eyes. The dangerous cut of a caulker’s mate on his own ship. _Some of us are meant for the fires,_ Mr. Hickey had said to him once, rolling his cigarette. _Might as well enjoy the ride._

“I’m not the Devil.”

“You do his work.”

“If I do, he’s not paying me enough. Should really bring that up with him then, probably somewhere between the witch orgies and the demon possessions, or whatever he’s into.” Hickey tilts his head, running a hand over his beard, looking oddly thoughtful. “How much do you think Satan’s paying these days? Thirty pieces of silver?”

“Blasphemy.”

Hickey shrugs, an insouciant smile on his mouth. “Already damned. What’s one more?”

“You could be saved.”

Hickey just laughs. “You can’t even hear how stupid that sounds, can you?”

“Repent.”

That damn brow again, that damn smile. “For what? Living?”

“You will not know happiness in Hell, when every inch of your skin burns and demons strip the flesh from your back - “

“What, like the happiness you know now?”

John is silent. When has he been happy? He had been young once and happy, even once winning a prize. He still wears that very medal on a chain at his neck, next to the silver cross. A little bit of love tucked in his pocket.

“You did so well,” his mother had said.

“Thank you,” he had said, flushed with pleasure. Gratitude is a virtue.

“Don’t get a big head now,” she’d admonished. “Don’t think too much of yourself. Pride is a sin.”

He closes his eyes. Remember the pond behind your childhood home. Remember the brush of the grasses against your legs, hairless then and innocent. A storm pressed at the edges, grey and dark, cumulonimbus clouds like black slashes. Tallymarks. Count your sins out loud, tally them up. Tell me what you’ve done. A clumsy child, he’d stumbled in the reeds, scaring the bullfrogs and the birds. The swans all alit from the water, taking to the sky. Seven. Count them. Tally them up. Seven swans against a storm-tossed sky.

He had been a child once, blameless and pale. That was before.

He swallows, climbing backward onto his bed. Hickey follows, climbing after him on the mattress by hands and knees.

“Are you His then?” Hickey asks, tiling John’s chin up. “Did He choose you? His _elect?_ ”

John swallows. The point of Hickey’s finger feels like a knife against his Adam’s apple. The vision of a blade piercing his body floats to the surface. How deep is the skin, his own layer of fat, the muscle and sinew too? How long would he bleed before the lights went out? How long would he bleed before the fires were lit? At the end, do the damned know the difference between the pyre and their final Hell?

“You’ll burn,” John hisses. “You can repent.”

“God didn’t save me,” Hickey says, shrugging. He quirks a brow. “I know the kind he picks. Rather burn for something I’ve done.” If you’re sent to the rack, why not earn your place?

_I could ask you. I could ask you to touch me._

“How?” Hickey asks. John must have spoken out loud.

“Don’t,” he says, leaning back on his palms, eyes wide and legs open. An invitation, wordless. He pretends he doesn’t speak the language of his body, that his soul is left blind and blameless in translation.

Hickey licks his lips. “Touch yourself.”

A shudder rips through John’s spine at the words. “I can’t.”

“You will. Look at you, you want to. Why not just do it already? Do you think God can’t see you wanting to push your hand down that flap and pull at that great cock of yours? If He does exist - “

“Blasphemy.”

“Shut up,” Hickey says, taking his two hands and spreading John’s knees apart. He sits back on his heels, as if satisfied with the view. “ _If_ He does exist and is all-knowing and all-powerful, then he’s already seen you like this and seen everything in that pretty head of yours, all the _filthy_ things you think about. Let’s face it, God’s already saved who he wants to and look at you, hard and thicker than a whaler’s arm, bloody hell. The way you look at me, well, you ain’t one of the good guys, are you?”

“Stop.”

“Stop what?” Hickey asks quietly. “I’m only talking.”

“That’s what the Serpent said.”

Hickey shrugs, leaning forward and gripping John’s wrist, pulling his hand down between his own thighs. John can feel his mortifying arousal double-fold: his hand on his cock, his cock in his hand.

“At least they got to eat the apple. What’s good about being damned if you’ve gotta starve the whole way?”

He hates how good it feels, his own pressure against the underside of his prick. He hates how he twitches at his own touch, how he leaks from even the faintest relief. He hates the gasp that steals through his teeth and, most of all, he hates how he cannot look away from Hickey’s wide, nearly-unblinking eyes as they watch him palm himself through the Royal Navy’s woolen trousers. Look at him, his own hand on his cock. He’s furtive and silent, imagining Hickey’s lean lines bent over before him or his own thighs spread wide. His dick is as hot as a brand, burning his fingers where he touches himself. Shame weighs heavily, sitting between his shoulders.

 _“Look at you,”_ his mother had said. _“You could have been a priest.”_

 _“Look at you,”_ the priest had said. _“God could have loved you.”_

What is there but how hot the fire is? In for a penny, in for a pound. _Touch me now,_ he thinks (never prays), _touch me at once._

 _“Please,”_ he begs. An illuminator beams ceaseless light down upon him. Where is the darkness? Where is the end?Will it be dark when we die or will the fires burn bright enough, feasting on our fat and sinew, keeping us awake at every turn? Will we rest? Is there rest?

_Look at you, fucking your own fist again. Couldn’t you have kept it in your pants? Couldn’t you have kept your mouth shut? Isn’t what we gave you good enough for you? This happy home, this happy life. You could have been heavenbound. John Irving, you’re only asking for what’s coming for you. This is your own fault, you’ll have no sympathy from me._

His eyes are wet. A common sinner, left to his total depravity.

Who has loved you, John Irving? If not the Lord, then who?

(His mother had been kind, brushing the hair back from his face. There had been tutors and pastors who had been gentle, who had made him laugh. He remembers the orange cat that had followed him through his village’s fields and woods, rubbing against his ankles. He remembers the dragonflies that had landed on his knuckles. He remembers how he had thought they were a sign from the Lord.)

Who has watched over you, John Irving? Is anyone watching even now? Does every nonbeliever feel this ache? God is a phantom limb.

How it aches. Lord, how it does.

“Tell me,” Hickey whispers. “Were you twelve? Thirteen? First time you knew God wasn’t looking? First time you wanted this.”

John’s eyes are hot. He hiccups, bearing down around them. “I don’t - “ No, that’s not true. He wants. That strange want that shifts nebulously from fantasy to unfulfilled desire. The first time, age fourteen (he had been late to everything, even blooming), when the priest reading the sermon had caught the light with his wide shoulders and John had gotten hard in his Sunday best, there in the pew. No one had noticed, not with his Bible held carefully open over his lap, his lip bitten and fury welling in every line of his body. The first time, yes, he had excused himself right after church, taking a shortcut through the woods, finding a fallen log to rut against. He had brought himself off there, hips against a piece of dead wood, unable to touch himself.

His trousers had been soaked. He’d jumped in the pond and told his mother later it had been an accident.

“You’re good at that,” Hickey says, his mouth half-parted and rubbing himself through his own clothes.

John breathes. Kindness is a challenge. To love yourself is to put God second. Where is your humility, John Irving? “No,” he murmurs, bowing his head and neck to God.

God is watching, He is watching. John, you are not alone. John, you are never alone. John, can’t you get a minute to yourself? No, no, no, nowhere and never. Not in the cellar, not in the washroom, not beneath the sheets, no. There is nowhere to run. Don’t ever flinch, don’t ever give over, keep yes out of your mouth.

 _Please,_ he wants to say. When Hickey touches him, it’s without words. Maybe the Lord is only listening for what we say. (John knows that isn’t true. What’s another stone on the scale? He knows he is bound for the burning anyway, the only reason we lash at others is to keep the accounting even, make sure they burn with us. At least Hell won’t be lonely.)

 _Touch me, touch me,_ he begs. _Touch me, please._

“Lean back,” Hickey murmurs, pressing a palm against John’s chest. The Devil is a train-riding man. The Devil is a ship-caulking man. The Devil is kneeling, diabolical and pale-faced, brushing his cheek against John’s, inhaling the scent of John’s hair. The Devil is lifting John’s mouth to meet his own and has very soft lips.

John expects it to burn, being kissed. It’s worse than it he could ever imagined.

It doesn’t burn at all.

How has it come to this? He has been careful. He had been a good kid. When has he ever missed a service? When has he not tried and tried and tried; when has he not lifted his head to the sky even with scraped knees?

“Look at how fucking wet you are already,” Hickey says. “You don’t even know what you want from me, do you?”

“I don’t want _anything_ from you.”

“Fine,” Hickey shrugs, making to rise from the bed. “I’ll just be off then.”

“Wait,” John says, putting a hand out. Mortification blooms throughout his body.

“Oh? Wait, you say?” He comes very close, near enough to kiss, but does not touch. “Is there a reason? For playing cards? A round or two of Blindman’s Buff? _Bible Study,_ maybe?”

“Please.”

“Well, ‘fraid I don’t know which of those it was. If you want something from me,” Hickey says, his eyes gleaming like a polished knife, “You’ll have to ask me for it.”

John closes his eyes, hunching his shoulders. Hickey and his pale eyes, his long hair, that lazy sprawl of his legs during meals. That quick, sharp brow and wit always running a second or two ahead, always waiting with an amused, baiting eye for John to catch up.

That cat-cream smile, that very same one he wears now.

“Use me, please,” John whispers. Shame sits on his tongue. He'll be used. Yes, just as he needs. Just as he likes. The shame of it licking up the back of his neck, down his shivering spine. The Devil has needs, like any rutting being, to go forth and multiply. It’s easy when you can blame it on the Devil. It’s easy to say _he made me do it,_ to look up to white-eyed Heaven above and say _you didn’t stop me._ John is called. Hear it, the herald devil singing, to go forth and be stuffed silent, to bend forward and backward, silent and aching, filled full with the deviant’s twitching, dripping cock. He can’t be blamed. Just a warm body, wet and open already, there to be fucked. 

The Devil has needs and John aches to be there in service, bending to them all. 

John keeps his eyes closed, even when Hickey leaves his mouth in peace and advances upon unclaimed territory. He finds John’s belly, running thin fingers through the dusting of hair and continuing onto the undone front of John’s trousers.

Hickey’s hand does burn when he wraps it around John’s cock. He shudders. (He has heard that the truly damned, the truly lost, learn to love their pyres.)

When Hickey swallows his cock, John bites his own fist, keeping his cries down. Keep them down, keep them buried. Desires are best left buried six-feet deep. Don’t look, don’t look.

He looks. Hickey’s mouth works like a man set at a feast. His neck and ears are as red as a prayer book. The veins at his temples strain, his mouth grows redder and redder still. Blue eyes flicker up to him. The color of an open sky above a meadow; the color of the robe of Mary, Mother of God.

“Please,” he whispers in a rush, trying to push Hickey off. “I’m close,” he says, his face burning red. “I’ll - in your - please.”

Hickey swallows harder. What else would he want? How else would he use John?

He imagines how it might go, these same hands curled tightly around his wrists. He would not be able to move. He would simply push his head back and squirm in the grasp of it all while Hickey slams hard and deep into him. There would be come between his thighs, the bitter scent of it in him. It would spill out from him, giving no quarter. How long would Hickey keep him? He doesn't know. Days. Weeks. Months, perhaps. As long as he needs John. His cock jerks again in Hickey’s hot mouth as John squeezes his eyes shut, imagining being spitroasted on this very man’s cock.

(He has heard that the truly damned, the truly lost, learn to love their own stakes.)

He cries out silently, biting his own forearm. 

Hickey grips his hips and bears down and when John comes, it’s surrounded by his sharp teeth and soft tongue, swallowed down by a living body and a willing tongue. Hickey brushes his own pale hair back after, leaning on his heels, wiping the evidence from his lower lip. His mouth is swollen.

John shakes, shattered to pieces in his own bed. Hickey lays a hand on his thigh. It’s surprisingly light.

“Look at you,” Hickey says. John frowns, trying to find the malice in it. Look at it, the spilled come on his sheets. Like a dog, he should have his face pushed in it, his knuckles rapped. _Bad. Don’t do that again. Don’t you ever learn?_ He licks his lips, his eyes are hot. He could cry.

He doesn’t.

Hickey wipes his hand on the sheets and rises, straightening his clothing and hair. “Well, that was some good clean fun, wasn’t it?”

“Where are you going?”

“For a smoke,” he says, shrugging. He pulls a bag of tobacco from the inside of his coat. "Got a craving.”

“You didn’t - “

The shadows of the small room give the impression of a skull when Hickey grins. “Oh,” he says, sliding the pocket door open. “I got what I came for.”

The Devil leaves his bed and leaves the lights on when he goes. 


End file.
